| 18431. |
- Mikhaylova, Tatiana, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Fabricating Normalcy Through Image-Based Assessments : A Brief History of Intelligence and Personality Tests
- 2023
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Ingår i: International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE), Budapest, July 17-21, 2023. - Budapest.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In 2018, the OECD launched a pilot study titled International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS) which assesses the emergent literacy, numeracy, self-regulation, and social emotional skills of children at age five. These skills are described as fundamental for children’s future achievements in school and later on in adulthood (OECD, 2020). According to the OECD (2015), the IELS will eventually “provide information on the trajectory between early learning outcomes and those at age 15, as measured by PISA” (p. 103). Thus, the basic assumptions underlying the IELS is that intelligence and socioemotional skills can be objectively evaluated and compared, and that they are stable and predictableIronically dubbed the ‘Baby PISA’, the IELS has already drawn a great deal of criticism, which tends to be in line with that of PISA (Auld & Morris, 2019; Moss et al., 2016). However, despite obvious connections to other large-scale assessments, the IELS stands out in terms of its methodology which was developed for children who typically cannot yet read and write. The instructions were given by a pre-recorded voice on a tablet and children could indicate their preferred response by touching items or moving them around the screen (OECD, 2020). Thus, at its core the IELS relies on children’s ability to ‘read’ pictures and to match what they hear and see with what they know.The use of visual imagery as a tool for measuring cognitive and socio-emotional development is by no means new. In fact, many intelligence and personality tests developed as early as the early 1900s (such as Binet-Simon intelligence scale or the Rorschach test) incorporated some form of images. Developed for diagnosing developmental or intellectual deficiencies in young children or to identify personality and mental health disorders, such tests provided a technique to reveal the invisible and to make the perceived differences between humans to become observable, measurable, comparable and, thus, ‘real’. Despite much criticism, tests of this kind are still widely used to differentiate ‘normal’ individuals from those ‘gifted’ or ‘at risk’ and to assign different pedagogical treatments to different groups of students (Paul, 2004).By measuring the cognitive and emotional intelligence of preschoolers, the IELS marks the culmination of a century in which testing was of paramount importance. In this paper we situate the IELS within a broader history of image-based assessments to discuss how images function as a tool for differentiating students, controlling education, and predicting future risks (cf. Pettersson & Nordin, forthcoming). For that we trace the history of some of the most common intelligence and personality tests and outline the conditions of possibility that enabled image-based tests to appear scientific and to function as a source of evidence.
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| 18432. |
- Mikhaylova, Tatiana, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Governing education through graphs, charts, and diagrams : Visualizing the past, present, and the desirable future
- 2023
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Data visualization has become an integral part of governing education, greatly expanding its reach and influence in the digital age. From tracking the performance of individual students to monitoring the overall success of educational systems, data visualization serves as a powerful tool for informing policy and decision-making on both global and local levels. By providing an easy-to-understand representation of numerical data, it helps governments to quickly identify patterns and trends over time, make calculations about the future and communicate complex information in ways that are both informative and aesthetically pleasing. While there has recently been an increased interest in understanding the role of numbers in shaping education policy (e.g., Pettersson, 2020), visual representations have so far received little attention. Given the importance attached to data in education governance (Williamson, 2016), this gap is surprising. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to contribute insights on how images, words and numbers work together to produce knowledge that makes educational systems amenable to analysis, comparison, and governance (Decuypere & Landri, 2021; Williamson, 2016). More precisely, we explore how quantitates are transformed into geometric shapes, arrows, bars, and vectors to create persuasive accounts of what ‘works’ and what needs to be fixed. We do so by analyzing abstract non-representational pictures employed by international education agencies (such as OECD and UNESCO) in their reports from the last three decades. Inspired by Science and Technologies Studies (Daston & Galison, 2007; Latour, 2012; Lynch & Woolgar, 1990), we consider data visualization a specific technique of knowledge production that structures our understanding of educational spaces and temporalities (cf. Decuypere & Simons, 2020). Although data visualization is often assigned the role of ‘cognitive aid’, the preliminary results of our study indicate that it is not as transparent and self-evident as it is widely believed. By allowing the viewer to ‘see’ the past and present and to imagine the future, graphs, charts, and diagrams convey the impression as if they were entirely devoid of politics. With this promise of objectivity visual representations turn invisible phenomena into ‘noisy’ but ‘beautiful’ evidence (Halpern, 2015; Lynch, 1991). Nevertheless, data visualization presupposes filtering of what can be seen, in what ways and for what purposes. As such, it operates as a mode of preemptive governance (cf. Massumi, 2007), whereby the visualized pasts and projected (un-)desirable futures are brought into and organize the present.
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| 18433. |
- Mikhaylova, Tatiana, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Minding the gaps : The politics of differentiation in Swedish education from 1842 to the 1960s
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of Curriculum Studies. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0022-0272 .- 1366-5839. ; 56:2, s. 160-171
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The concept of differentiation holds immense significance in education, touching upon aspects like access, inclusion, justice, and equality. However, it is also a complex and elusive notion, which acquires different meanings across historical and cultural contexts. This article explores the shifting reasoning about differentiation in the Swedish educational context. Inspired by Foucault’s account of disciplinary power, it conceptualizes differentiation as a technique for marking and addressing gaps between individuals. Drawing on an analysis of governmental and scholarly reports from 1842 to the late 1960s, the article identifies three shifts in the reasoning on differentiation: 1) from differentiation by socioeconomic class as a given factor to the search for scientific rationales for differentiation based on measurement of intellectual ability, 2) from viewing differences in intelligence as biologically conditioned and stable to viewing them as amenable to training and correction through education, and 3) from a focus on inputs to a focus on outputs. Overall, the article argues that even if the term ‘differentiation’ itself has been discursively replaced by others, the ideas underlying it—the search for gaps—continue to shape education in Sweden and beyond.
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| 18434. |
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| 18435. |
- Mikhaylova, Tatiana, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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The Shape(s) of Knowledge : Pyramids, Ladders, Trees and other Visual Representations of Bloom’s Taxonomy
- 2024
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- What image comes to your mind when you hear ‘Blooms Taxonomy’? Most likely it is a pyramid with several different colored levels of knowledge from ‘remember’ to ‘create’, with implied or explicit arrows pointing upward. In fact, this visualization of taxonomy is one of the most popular. Yet, its origin remains a mystery: it was not part of Bloom’s et al (1956) original framework or the later revision (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). On the one hand, pyramids and triangles are a common way of visualizing theoretical models in the social and educational sciences: think of the didactic triangle, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943), or Dale’s cone of experience (1946). However, while these models have largely retained their original pyramidal representations over time, Bloom’s taxonomy has evolved into various visual metaphors such as ladders, trees, circles, and flowers. What ideas about knowledge do these visualizations convey?Developed in the 1950s, Bloom’s Taxonomy was designed to provide a wide range of educational professionals with a simple theoretical model that could be used to address curriculum and evaluation problems (Bloom et al, 1956, p. 1). Essentially a product of behaviorism, Bloom’s taxonomy emphasizes observable students’ behaviors resulting from instructions. Moreover, the very word “taxonomy” represents an attempt to apply models from the natural sciences, particularly biology, to the field of education. In biology, taxonomy refers to the classification of organisms into a hierarchical structure based on shared characteristics. By borrowing this concept from the natural sciences, Bloom’s Taxonomy sought to bring a similar order and ‘scientific’ rigor to educational objectives. A taxonomy, according to Bloom, unlike a simple classification system, must follow structural rules and reflect a “real” order among the phenomena it organizes (Bloom et al, 1956, p. 18). It is a method of ordering phenomena that should reveal their essential properties as well as significant relationships among them (p. 17). Recognizing the difference between classifying phenomena in the natural sciences and more abstract educational phenomena, Bloom noted that educational objectives, when expressed in behavioral terms, could indeed be observed, described, and thus classified.Bloom’s Taxonomy has not only survived the decline of behaviorism but is still widely used in educational planning and evaluation in different parts of the world, including Europe (Anderson & Sosniak, 1994). Moreover, a new revision, known as Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, was recently developed by Churches (2008) to account for the skills required in the digital age. Such persistence of the taxonomy can be attributed to several factors. First, its structured approach provides a practical and easy-to-use framework for educators and curriculum designers. Second, its adaptability to different visual metaphors may also contribute to its enduring appeal (see Mitchell, 2005). Third, most research on taxonomy tends to focus on its interpretations, misinterpretations and application in educational practice but ignores its historical origins, theoretical underpinnings, and visualizations.This study explores the confluence of ideas and practices through which a hierarchy of knowledge is produced and disseminated as scientific facts. Specifically, it examines the assumptions and beliefs about knowledge implicit in the Bloom’s Taxonomy and its different visual representations. In doing so, the study brings together and extends the insights from a growing body of literature on how pictorial and graphic displays of conceptual models, methods or data transform ‘invisible’ phenomena into visible facts (Baigrie, 1996; Coopmans et al, 2014; Jones & Galison, 1998; Latour, 1993, 2017; Lynch, 1981; Pauwels, 2005; Rogers et al, 2021). This means that we regard pictures as an important part of discourses that establish ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault, 2014) and promote certain ways of thinking, knowing, seeing, and acting in the world.
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| 18436. |
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| 18437. |
- Milana (ed.), Marcella, et al.
(författare)
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BAEA: Becoming Adult Educators in the European Area : Synthesis research report
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- With an increased interest in and focus on lifelong learning and adult education as a means to economic development, social cohesion and participation in a democracy, comes an enhanced attention on adult educators and their qualifications. In light of this, the aim of Becoming Adult Educators in the European Area (BAEA), results of which are presented in this publication, has been to investigate ways prospective adult educators qualify for their jobs in terms of professional competences beforeentering the profession. Inspired by Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1986), among others, the study is grounded on the premise that individuals exist in multiple, multilayered and interacting contexts, each of which is a domain of social relations and physical contexts. The specific aims of the project have been: To analyse ways in which adult education policies and initial education andtraining opportunities for prospective adult educators affect professionalisation processes in the field of general, vocationally-oriented and liberal adult education; To investigate social and cultural factors that influence the individual formation of initial competences and qualifications of adult educators in the field of general, vocationally-oriented and liberal adult education; To investigate the main factors that influence the construction of a professional identity among prospective adult educators. Professional development in this study is defined as a process that involves the acquisition of a specialised body of knowledge, the formation of personal teaching-learning theories grounded on both theoretical principles and the self-interpretation of one‟s own practice, as well as the construction of a professional identity. The study is designed as a comparative study involving four European countries: Denmark, Estonia, Italy and Sweden. The empirical data was collected in the period of 2008-2009, in two steps. In the first step, a literature review of existing informationon adult education and learning and on the structural conditions surrounding the adult educator at work was conducted. The documents analysed included research reports and articles, official descriptions of national education systems, policy papers, laws, by-laws and reports, including national reports to the European Commission on the implementation of lifelong learning strategies at national levels. The second step consisted of narrative interviews which were conducted with a total of sixty-two persons undertaking specialised studies in adult education and learning. Each interview was first analysed in depth following a common frame of reference. Thereafter, cross-case analyses were carried-out nationally, and finally comparisons were made cross-nationally. Though the four countries studied differ in relation to adult education traditions as well as structural and political conditions, the analysis unveils similar trends for all – both in relation to adult education and training and in relation to the qualification of current and prospective adults educators. The empirical evidence brought together underscores that while the quality of adult education represents a topic of concern, it nonetheless underestimates the difficulties embedded in the provision of qualified teaching-learning transactions by adult educators who often enter the profession without specialised pedagogical knowledge. Further, the evidence highlights that professionalism in the field of adult education embodies contrasting views and understandings of its purpose, characterisations and possibilities, not least due to weak social recognition, fragile collective representativeness and individual protection. To better the conditions for the professionalisation of prospective and current adult educators, hence the quality of adult education provisions, more research-based knowledge in the field is needed. At the same time, the European Commission, governments, and other institutional actors and education agencies should: Develop policies and practices aimed at defining and implementing initial education and training paths and appropriate support for further career development in the field of adult education; Recognise adult educators as a professional group with complex cultural and professional competences; Create new opportunities for participation in specialised studies and concrete or virtual communities for professional exchange and mutual enrichment; Organise functional internships; Improve recruitment strategies and working conditions.
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| 18438. |
- Milani, Tommaso M., et al.
(författare)
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Civic orientation for adult migrants in Sweden : A multimodal critical discourse analysis of Swedish values and norms
- 2022
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Ingår i: Fjortonde nationella konferensen isvenska med didaktisk inriktning. - Malmö : Malmö universitet. - 9789178772841 - 9789178772858 ; , s. 57-77
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Drawing upon the analytical techniques of multimodal critical discourse analysis, this article investigates the book About Sweden, an educational materia lemployed in courses on civic orientation for newly arrived migrants. The analysisis informed by the following research questions: (1) What are represented as typically Swedish values and norms in the textbook? (2) How are such norms and values portrayed through written language and visual images? Visually the book relies on specific representations of Swedish nature without people. We argue that such pictures of the Swedish landscape are not ideologically neutral but carry connotations that are historically linked to forms of Swedish nationalism. Moreover, we interpret the lack of people in line with Berggren and Trägårdh (2006) notion of statist individualism (statsindividualism), an ideology according to which a strong interventionist welfare-state is not necessarily incompatible with the maximisation of individual freedom. Our textual analysis illustrates the textual tensions between, on the one hand, the choice of specific norms and values as Swedish, and, on the other hand, aversion towards overt national identity labels. Finally, we illustrate how Swedish values and norms in the textbook are just one link in a longer intertextual chain that connects the book to other policy documents as well as Swedish politicians’ public statements in the context of current debates about migration in Sweden.
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| 18439. |
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Miljödidaktiska texter
- 2000
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Baksidestext: Har vi råd att leva miljövänligt frågar sig Högni Hansen i sitt bidrag till det här numret av Miljödidaktiska texter. Han svarar med ett exempel: Européernas årliga glasskonsumtion kostar dubbelt så mycket som utgifterna för att ge världens alla barn och ungdomar en rimlig skolundervisning. Men tänker du på skolundervisning när du köar framför glasskiosken en varm sommardag? Högni vill ge oss perspektiv samtidigt som exemplen provocerar. Våra inköp och val bygger förstås inte bara på den kunskap vi besitter. Det framgår av Anders Olssons resonemang om att sila mygg och svälja kameler. Vi väljer och väljer bort. Men väljer vi rätt? Nja, det är en fråga om värderingar. Därför bör vi utveckla elevernas förmåga att välja självständigt och delta i samhället. Finn Mogensen slår fast att miljöundervisning inte ska ha som mål att förändra elevernas beteende. Däremot bör vi utveckla deras handlingskompetens. Margareta Ekborg diskuterar hur en biocentrisk natursyn, som sätter livet som sådant i centrum och en antropocentrisk människosyn, där människan sätts i centrum, påverkar våra val. Samtidigt ger hon ett vetenskapshistoriskt perspektiv på miljöfrågorna.
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| 18440. |
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Miljödidaktiska texter
- 2001
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Baksidestext: I det här numret hittar du just artiklar som på olika sätt belyser området miljödidaktik. Hur förstår ungdomar i skolan växthuseffekten? Björn Andersson redovisar i sin artikel elevers förståelse av växthuseffekten. Mats Areskoug, ger i sin artikel prov på konkreta fysikaliska experiment om växthuseffekten som han utvecklat i sitt arbete med miljöfysik. Lilian Nilsson tar avstamp i den nya lärarutbildningen och hoppas att det i den framtida utbildningen kommer att finnas en kunnig, perspektivrik och värdeinriktad dialog. I artikeln förklarar hon och diskuterar bl.a vad miljöetik. Margareta Ekborg funderar i en artikel kring vad ett miljöperspektiv betyder och hur det kan komma in de nya utbildningen. Harriet Axelsson, som tillsammans med Per Wickenberg, har arbetat fram Skolverkets kriterier för miljömärkning av skolor, skriver om vilka erfarenheter vi kan dra från det arbetet för högskolan.
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